Confront the Unknown Thief
by Black Rosettes
Summary: A short story recounting one of the more memorable events in Going Commando between Ratchet and the Thief.


_Disclaimer: Character names, locations, and all likeliness, borrowed from the Ratchet & Clank game, are copyright of Insomniac Games. These aforementioned things are not my creations; I simply incorporate new ideas with what already works. No copyright infringement intended._

_Author's Notes: This short story is really obvious, but I figured I might as well be the first to recall one of the more memorable events in Going Commando. For realistically writing' sake, I toned down the amount of exaggeration featured in the game, but also tried to keep the characters believable. Did I succeed? You let me know! Reviews, compliments, or constructive criticism are always appreciated._

"Confront the Unknown Thief"

Written by Black Rosettes

**Planet Siberius, Frozen Base, Bogon galaxy**

On Siberius, the planet's inclement snowy weather, icy caps and mountainous hills, surrounded the frozen base with a world of white and green; the snow dropped almost like rain, but without the same kind of speed, and it covered just about anything that lacked adequate roofing. Here, the wind didn't blow gusts; it remained calm, as if to sulk in the absence of a summer season. The base structures and, the surrounding areas, dotted with small buildings, had long formed several stalactites along their snowy edges, from every curve to every round top roof. Upon closer examination, drops of water dripped from the icy sickles.

On the landing zone a new ship welcomed the frozen pad. The canopy had already begun to fog up because of the temperature outside it, but this didn't concern the pilot as he flipped a switched on his ship's dashboard. The fiber glass slid open and he leapt out onto the launch pad, taking in the fresh, cool air. Behind him, his ever faithful companion, a diminutive robot, followed his lead and automatically attached himself onto his friend's back. The lombax surveyed the area through his green visor of his Megacorp commando helmet while arming himself with a Lancer.

"The thief has led us this far, Clank, there is no turning back now," Ratchet said, making a trail of tracks behind him.

He walked cautiously toward a pathway that curved around a slope near where the landing zone had been erected. Cutting around a corner, first with the barrel of his Lancer, he continued onward in hopes that there were potentially dangerous surprises riddled about the quiet site. After all, he was one who loved a challenge.

He looked down and took note of a suspicious looking compartment buried in the ground with only its metallic surface exposed. When he got closer to it, the device seemed to click, and then the compartment slid open, revealing a metal orb of some sort. Not only did one of these strange things come up from the same hole in the ground but many more from neighboring traps. It seemed the lombax had triggered a security system.

"Watch out, Ratchet, those are Blade Balls." Clank motioned his head from behind to look over the lombax's right shoulder. "Do not let them get too near or expect to lose some of your precious fur. Heh-heh-heh-heh!"

Ratchet took aim at the nearest blade ball that approached him in an ominous, hovering way. With a well-placed shot, the device erupted in a ball of flames and shrapnel. Then came more of these deadly things. Three of said security devices made a second, repeating, clicking sound, and then they seemed to slow down, split open their tops, and out came four twirling blades--spinning at increasingly fast speeds.

"Whoa!" the lombax leapt backwards as one almost took a piece out of his armored pants leg. He readied his weapon anew and began firing rapidly until there were no more ball blades to be seen or heard from.

Ratchet kept going along the lonely trail toward a facility that lied behind a small bridge. And when he drew near as if to pass without much resistance, a metal shutter imploded, tossing debris his way. Out came from a hidden chamber were more of those Megacorp MSR1's and MSRII's he had surely seen before; these robotic minions were a little different than what the lombax had seen previously, for they sported a more heavily armored plating conceived of Carbonox and Raritanium, which made them more durable than ever. It didn't take the hero long to see that his Lancer was no match for these enhanced robots.

Like brothers, MSR1's and MSRII's approached Ratchet with an unexpressive demeanor. Some of these robotic computers, capable of some level of conscience, came forth with arm-fitted chainsaws or flamethrowers, whichever color their chassis denoted. And while the ones with deadly chainsaws approached casually, the red ones, armed with the flamethrower, ignited their weapon and shot forth an endless stream of fire--swaying their arm as they made up the rear. This spectacle of doom proved to be a challenge for the hero, but he persevered.

Putting his failed Lancer away, he equipped his Mini-Nuke, one of the more powerful weapons he had recently upgraded. And with a shot from it, the blast radius, alone, sent a wall of explosive fire all over the bridge, nearly destroying it right along with the robots. The robots reacted with a startle as if the blast bewildered them too. Those that survived the blast were set ablaze, but they continued their pursuit of the lombax.

"These things just keep coming!" Ratchet bared his teeth and fired another nuke, watching as the black ball of doom struck the ground and made his whole world shake.

That second explosion practically destroyed the first and second waves of MSR1's and II's.

Satisfied, the lombax boosted forth with the aid of his friend's thrusters, crossing the bridge safely. Together, they ran alongside the base with Ratchet's boots throwing up snow in front and behind them. Suddenly, there was another ambush waiting for the duo.

From a building and over a brick wall that conceived one part of the base's structure, more robots wanted to meet their fates.

"These guys never learn!"

Being too close to deal with these nuisances with the Mini-Nuke, the lombax brought out his Blitz Gun. The shotgun proved more than useful for close-ranged combat. With a pull of the trigger, the large weapon jerked back, accompanied by a loud sound. The flash of the weapon was not terribly bright, but the strength of the shells, fired one at a time, shredded the competition. All that was left were pieces of red, blue, and green. Another successful victory for these two.

When the snowy path ended, an elevator platform greeted the two. Stepping onto the platform, they descended further down the slope of the mountain of which the base had been built on top. The ride was rather abrupt and at the end of it was more of the same welcoming committee, but this time with a combination of all who dared to challenge the lombax.

Three icy platforms was what came before an endless horde of machines and a ridiculously massive snow mobile, which remained parked and unattended at the start of a winding path downward. Perhaps it would take them farther into the base?

Not waiting too long to jump at the chance to get past the obstacles beforehand, the lombax leapt from one platform to the next, activating the blade balls which followed him with a dogged persistence. When he reached land again more robots greeted him with chainsaws, flamethrowers, and plasma guns. Being surrounded, Ratchet timed his attacks with such rhythm that he was never in the same place twice: he leapt over a group, fired his Blitz Gun at the closest adversaries in front, and then came down with a powerful hyper-strike, crippling any bots that crept up from behind. At times, because the enemy was kind of slow, he would run several steps ahead, feign to shoot his weapon, but throw his Omniwrench--whipping the robots into each other, and making the blade balls explode simultaneously.

This Veldin boy was too skilled in combat! And he knew it.

Once the lombax reached the end of the frosty land, with nowhere else to explore, he climbed into the back of the snow mobile, and it quite surprisingly pulled away with the best timing.

The oversized vehicle stormed down a snowy hill. The only things Ratchet could see were how fast the snow-covered trees and land sped by like a movie reel. The door behind him began to close him in, and then there was only one direction to go in. Putting away his Blitz Gun, he tried out his newly purchased Chopper. He ran toward another shutter and it threw itself open, as if the occupants on the other side knew he was coming.

Almost instinctively, he threw a disc or two in the direction of the robots, some being sliced in an instant, while others lost pieces of themselves, but kept on their pursuit. He threw a disc against the wall of the compartment and watched as it ricocheted, honed in on the nearest enemy and took off its head, revealing it circuitry. The sight and sound of the sparks excited the hero.

"Haha! Did you see that, Clank? That bot just lost his head." He smiled at his own achievement.

Disposing of the rest of the robot ensemble, another door, very similar to the one they had seen prior boarding the mobile, fell open and revealed a Swingshot target. The lombax switched over to the required gadget, aimed, and fired, being pulled in for a wild swing between a monstrous drop after another. As he landed on the closest one to the leading cart, he readied his Lancer once more, and ran up on a walkway leading to the top of the cart. There he really got an impressive view of the considerable depth of the frozen base's adjoining complex, as it was coming up in a few minutes.

Quite unexpectedly, the sound of small thrusters filled his ears, and he turned quickly to see what was to come next. Clank motioned his head back and forth, trying to see who it was.

"Is it the Unknown Thief?" Clank said.

Ratchet's expression changed from excitement to one that marked hatred; his eyes narrowed; his ears bent forward; his teeth showed from between his thin lips, and his eyebrows creased with the slant of his fiery eyes. He pivoted in such a way that would suggest that he was going to fire at the menace.

"Yup, it's _him_, all right."

The thief stood atop a flying glider, with his arms folded and his head tilted slightly to the side, as to mock the heroes with his grace. "You will die," was all the masked villain said, and then revealed a strange weapon, charged and aimed for Ratchet's head.

Ratchet maneuvered in time to elude the blaster that shot forth a quick burst of plasma energy. The area where Ratchet had been standing previously was singed with a dark tint. The lombax climbed slowly to his feet and took aim at the thief. He fired several times at the figure.

Almost effortlessly, the thief dodged out of harm's way, thanks to the aid of his glider that sported great dexterity. The thief then motioned the glider with his slender legs to the other side of the snow mobile, firing again at the duo.

"Arg!" came from Ratchet as he narrowly dodged the second blast.

The thief laughed evilly at the lombax's helplessness.

At this, Ratchet took his chance and fired a round while lying on his side. The thief was caught off guard and struck by the blast, being knocked back and almost falling off his glider.

Holding his head in a bit of agony. "Ow!" came the typical, gruff voice of the assailant. And once he was back on his feet, he sped off ahead of the snow mobile, disappearing somewhere down the slope.

Ratchet used his Swingshot and gave chase, trying to reach the front of the vehicle, swinging from this cart to the front. But when he landed at the topmost, something rattled the entire ride, and sent his world for a spiral. Something had made the ride halt, spilling over all the crates and their contents onto an ice-covered depot. The lombax's senses awoke a minute later when he found himself laying on his side, and his weapon lost several feet away from him.

For a moment, his vision was blurry, but it cleared a few seconds after seeing a dark silhouette hover several feet ahead of him. The thief was near and went to a largely built heliport. Ratchet scrambled to his feet, went over to reclaim his Lancer, and then ran to a ladder which led another level up that was closer to the new landing zone.

When he reached the top--hopping up from the topmost bar--he saw the thief only several yards away, and it seemed the villain apparently waited for him. Incensed by the thief's cockiness, he rushed forward with his Lancer. Not paying too much mind at the compartments buried into the catwalk, blade balls surfaced and stopped him in his tracks. Aiming his weapon, he pulled the trigger, but a click told him that he had run out of ammunition, so he put the weapon aside and held out his large wrench.

He smashed his way through the blade balls, not allowing them to open up and slice at him with their blades of death. When he cleared his path, he climbed another ladder, and then met up with the pain of his....

While he approached, the thief threatened with a remote of some kind in one gloved hand. "Ha! You've lost, Megacorp."--rested a thumb on the red button on the remote--"Take your imperialistic eco-fascism to another dimension."

Noticing the tightening gesture of the lombax, the thief shifted back and away from him. Ratchet's lunge with his mighty wrench had failed pitifully. At this, the masked unknown shook his head, said in another deep voice: "Too slow, you corporate lackey." Then he pushed the button.

The lombax gave a look of disbelief and failure as he found the experiment strapped to a rocket. Not giving up the fight just yet, he gritted his teeth, growled, and prepared himself for the first true fight.

Ratchet ran to the center of the landing zone and equipped a weapon that would function well for both short- and long-ranged combat--the Plasma Coil. With it, he attempted to aim and put the thief out of his misery, but suddenly a large shadow enveloped the scene around him. As he looked up, there was a massive drop ship and, from within, a beam shot down and dispatched robots of the many. They all came with a hurried approach, trying to quickly surround the hero and attack all at once.

Fear gathered in small amounts in the lombax's heart as he barely managed to perform a strafe-flip, coming down hard and taking aim. From his weapon shot out an electrical ball that moved slowly in one direction. As it neared the evil party, the energy ball coalesced into a horizontal bar of energy that acted like a large, invisible bar that pulled the robots back, dissembling some while frying the circuitry of others. The spectacle of an electric force field resulted in annihilating the majority of the robots, and their closest neighbors. At this, the thief browed behind his mask, a little worried that the battle would turn in the favor of whoever possessed the strongest weapon.

Reaching from behind him, the thief examined some devices that resembled marbles, and then threw them at the lombax. The radiating balls were nothing Ratchet had ever seen before, but what he quickly discovered was that they would turn into something else more vicious than robots.

The balls slowly made their descent, each at a different corner of the landing zone, and then changed; they took shape into mini-turrets and, without warning, immediately began unleashing a hellish and continuous spray of bullets. The lombax forced himself to perform a variety of flips, dodging the hundreds of rounds that fired each second. He really hadn't any time to stop and think about his alternatives.

"Ratchet, use your HK22 weaponry. It will automatically take out those turrets just as long as you are precise with your aim," said Clank.

Doing as his bot friend suggested, he equipped the gun, and fired it in the direction of two of the turrets. Out shot a device that steadily went in a straight line until it was close enough to detect a target in midair. The device resembled something of a "w," and when it found its target it paused in the air, turned to lock in on the target, and then slammed right into it with a fiery explosion.

Two turrets were destroyed this way.

While Ratchet had his back to the thief, distracted by the remaining turrets, he charged his weapon once more, and tried to get a hit on the lombax. The lombax overheard the charging sound, determined when to jump away, and successfully leapt out of the blast's way. This agitated the thief even further, and so he had one more trick up his sleeve as another wave of robots came to his aid.

Ratchet finally managed to destroy the last two turrets. Relieved, he turned his attention back to the center of the heliport, stealing a glimpse of the thief too. As the robots made their way toward him, he pulled out his Chopper, and let them have it; but, before he could finish the last wave of the robots, he noticed the thief was taking longer than normal to charge his weapon, as if to fire another string of plasma. Once the barrel of the thief's weapon grew bright, Clank voluntarily took Ratchet into the air with a boost-jump, followed by a soft glide with his thruster-pack.

The whole timing couldn't have been better: the plasma blast from the thief struck home on the surface of the port, and enveloped the robots in a fiery ring of death. The robots turned to amber in an instant, and he cursed to himself.

Ratchet had had enough of this game... He dropped his Chopper for his Vaporizer, and quickly zoomed in on the thief's glider. The sniper rifle went off with a resonating blast, and then the thief fell flat on his face on the port, unmoving. Was the battle really over?

Ratchet turned his back on the thief for a moment, remembering about the Protopet strapped to the rocket, which stood still because of a preset timer. A single blast of his rifle was all the lombax needed to free the experiment: it fell into his gloved hands.

"You had us worried for a moment."

He then handed it over to Clank for safekeeping. Unfortunately, by the time the lombax turned his attention back on the unknown thief, the thief rose to his feet, climbed abroad his partially damaged glider, and sped off. The villain only looked back once.

At this, Clank brought up his left arm, which was currently being gnawed on by the protopet.

"Hmmm, do you suppose we should stop him?"

Ratchet swayed an arm in a dismissive gesture. "Not worth it--we got what we came for."

The lombax stared off in the direction the thief had disappeared.

"Let's just get that little guy back to Mr. Fizzwidget," he said.

Moments later, the duo reported their mission a success to Abercrombie, via a holovid near the landing zone.

"Cratchet! Spank? Is that you?"

Ratchet gave a salute. "We've accomplished our mission, sir. The Experiment is safe and in our possession."

Relief and then surprise shone on the old man's face.

"Why that's cutaneous! Absolutely munificent! You two are a galluptious team."

Clank chimed in, followed by Ratchet.

"We were glad to assist, sir."

"We just need coordinates to our next rendezvous point."

The thief had lost the battle and, not to mention, the experiment too, at the capable hands of Ratchet and Clank, but it surely wouldn't be the last time they would see him again. There was a score to be settled....


End file.
